Homebound people face hassles
Eager to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha with their families, homebound passengers scramble to board a train at Kamalapur Railway Station in the city yesterday.Photo: STAR
A large number of city dwellers left the capital yesterday, the last working day before the Eid-ul-Azha holidays, amid huge suffering due to delays in the arrival of trains and buses. Almost all inter-district trains were around two to five hours late in reaching Kamalapur Railway Station while buses, especially those on Dhaka-Chittagong route, were around two to eight hours late due to long tailbacks on highways. A Jamalpur-bound train, Aghnibina, scheduled to arrive at 8:00am, reached Dhaka around 5:00pm. The Rangpur Express arrived around four hours past the due time. Train service is facing disruption since Wednesday due to an arson attack on Egaro Sindhu Express following the assassination of Narsingdi Municipality Mayor Lokman Hossain on Tuesday. Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain came on a visit to the railway station yesterday morning where he said train schedules of all routes would return to normalcy in a day or two. He said seven pairs of special trains, having 36 compartments of broad gauge and 20 of metre gauge, were introduced to cope with the rush of passengers. Meanwhile, long tailbacks on Dhaka-Chittagong highway and Paturia-Daulatdia Ferry Ghat added to the sufferings of passengers. Both lanes of the highway starting from Comilla Cantonment to Meghna Bridge witnessed a 60-kilometre long traffic jam. A passenger, Sumaiyya Begum, waiting at Fakirapur bus counter said, “My little baby became sick while I have been waiting here for five hours. I still do not know when the bus will arrive.” “Chittagong-bound buses are departing around 10 to 12 hours past their scheduled time due to traffic jam,” said Romesh Chandra Sen, managing director of Shyamoli Paribahan. Besides, several hundred buses and trucks carrying cattle were waiting at Aricha and Paturia ferry ghats till filing of this report at 8:00pm. A cattle trader Hashem Miah at Gabtoli yesterday said, “I had to wait for 19 hours since Wednesday at 8:00am before my truck could board a ferry at Daulatdia.” Meanwhile, hundreds of passengers thronged Sadarghat Launch Terminal from the morning to secure a space on the vessels. “The launch I am travelling on departs in the evening but I came here at 12:00 noon,” said Rahmat Ali, a passenger bound for Barguna. Rafiqul Islam, senior deputy director of Sadarghat Launch Terminal, said they expect around 75 to 80 vessels to leave the terminal by midnight yesterday.
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